NEW BRUNSWICK — When Dharun Ravi spied on his gay roommate, Tyler Clementi, in an intimate embrace with another man via a remote webcam, he was not merely committing a prank, an assistant prosecutor told a jury this morning in a New Brunswick courtroom.

“It was not an accident, not a mistake,” First Assistant Prosecutor Julia McClure said during her 30-minute opening statements today at Ravi’s trial. “It was certainly not good-natured as the defendant has suggested. It was purposeful, intentional … meanspirited, malicious and criminal. Those acts were meant to cross one of the most sacred boundaries of human privacy, engaging in private sexual human activity.”

McClure laid out in three chapters the state’s case against Ravi, who is charged with multiple counts of bias intimidation, invasion of privacy and hindering apprehension.

Prosecutors say Ravi watched his Rutgers University roommate, Tyler Clementi, during an intimate encounter with another man from a remote webcam in a nearby room on Sept. 19, 2010. Ravi also allegedly announced the encounter on Twitter, and invited his followers to watch on a second occasion.

Clementi discovered that planned viewing and pulled the plug from the computer before it could be seen. The 18-year-old freshman committed suicide several days later by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. The death prompted a national discussion about gay suicide and cyber-bullying.

Ravi, seated at the defense table, gave little reaction as McClure described the text and Twitter messages he sent out about the two encounters, then his attempts to conceal and cover them up. She spoke to a packed courtroom, filled with news reporters and photographers, along with the parents of Ravi and Clementi.

“It is not about Dharun Ravi having to like his roommate's sexual orientation,” McClure said. ‘This is about Dharun Ravi having the decency to respect it and to respect Tyler’s privacy, and the defendant did not do that.”

The court took a brief break, which will be followed by opening statements from Ravi’s attorney, Steven Altman.